


Person County, 1948

by rose_indigo_and_tom



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, F/F, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27405850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_indigo_and_tom/pseuds/rose_indigo_and_tom
Summary: The snowpeas come up at the end of the first week of May, and TK does a little jump for joy when she sees, shrieks “PATTY MY PEAS ARE UP” like it’s a giant victory instead of just nature doing its normal thing. The snowpeas are the first thing she started from seed to really come up this year, unless you count the lettuces, which seem to grow like crazy no matter how bad she treats them.....Even with all the windows open and the fan blowing, it’s still not exactly comfortable inside, and Nolan knows it’s only going to get worse from there. She’s sweated through her blouse, tendrils of hair coming loose and frizzing up in the heat and humidity. Whenever God made the earth, and decided that plums would ripen just as the heat’s getting unbearable, He must have had Nolan’s personal eternal suffering in mind.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 11
Kudos: 41
Collections: Hockey Big Bang (2020)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it’s me back w another farm/ranch au. This is my shit. Hashtag pastoral fantasies for life. 
> 
> Is their gardening schedule entirely wrong for not only Canada, but also Pennsylvania? Emphatically yes. This is my wish fulfillment fic, and I live in a warm place. Did i watch “a secret love” before writing this? No. Will i ever stop writing split POV? Absolutely not. 
> 
> A million thank you's to Stromesquad for the art and the beta and the rule 63 inspiration, Abby for encouraging me when I was ready to give up, and jolach for your amazing author letter which planted this seed in my mind months and months ago. And also to my mother and my grandmother and my great grandmother, whose experiences growing up on farms fueled this all, even if they can never know of its existence.

It gets warm late that year, the weather sneaking in a few 85 degree days every so often to keep them on their toes, but mainly sticking to temperatures in the mid sixties, well into May. Well into the time it’d already be starting to get unbearable. Not that she’s complaining, because she’s never one to complain about nicer weather, but it’s a bit odd for sure. It also means that she didn’t permanently fuck up planting the snowpea seed, which was supposed to go in beginning of April but which she definitely forgot about for almost a month. Thank God. No snowpeas ain’t the end of the world, but it ain’t ideal either. She has a soft spot in her heart from running wild as a child and eating them out of the neighbors’ garden, and they’re kind of prolific, which is good for the farm stand.

The snowpeas come up at the end of the first week of May, and TK does a little jump for joy when she sees, shrieks “PATTY MY PEAS ARE UP” like it’s a giant victory instead of just nature doing its normal thing. The snowpeas are the first thing she started from seed to really come up this year, unless you count the lettuces, which seem to grow like crazy no matter how bad she treats them. She started some okra from seed, but it was too cold to go straight in the ground, and by the time she transplanted it, it was already dying. She started new seed, but it’s longer to come up than the peas, so just the barest tendrils are poking up now, small enough that they could easily be pollen blown into the raised bed. 

It’s a brisk day, clouds blowing quickly across the blue sky. It had rained hard earlier, but by early evening it’s clear and chilly, the rain the only remnant of the afternoon storm. Patty is fixing something for dinner, probably something with chard and sweet potatoes, if the week’s harvest is anything to go by. Maybe some sausage. Whatever it is, the smell is coming out the backdoor and into the kitchen garden, and it smells great. When she was younger, TK always thought of chard and sweet potatoes as fall vegetables, but she’s learned what does for fall like as not does for early spring, which is nice. It’s always nice when they can start with the fresh produce again. 

It’s Wednesday, which means tomorrow is Patty’s big day in the kitchen, between baking and meal planning and shopping. They’re working on the tail end of last week’s bread, and no sweets. Not that sweets are a necessity, except for that they are. TK’s not sure how Patty manages it; it all seems like so much work than what she has to do. Looking after their animals and the garden is work, but she can’t imagine looking after the house like Patty does, let alone worrying about money the way she does. The only thing that keeps Travis from feeling like a complete slouch is the fact that she knows, without a doubt, that Patty would say her own job is much less work than being responsible for their livelihood and the lives of all their animals.

She finishes up giving a last look over the vegetables and the sheep, herds the chickens back into their coop for the night, and heads inside, taking off her muddy boots at the back steps. She walks into the kitchen, comes up behind Patty and hugs her around the middle. 

“Hey,” she says, quiet. Rests her cheek between Patty’s shoulder blades.

“Hey Trav. You done out there?”

“Yeah, everything’s good. You hear about my peas?”

“It’d be hard not to, what with you screaming for the whole neighborhood to hear,” Patty says, a smile audible in her words.

“As if we have neighbors.”

“Well. If we did they’d all’ve heard. I’m glad about the peas though, it’s good it’s not too hot for them still.”

“Yeah, I got lucky with the weather this year. What’s for dinner?”

“Sweet potato hash, stuck some mushrooms and chard stems in there. And a bit of that young garlic, too. And strawberry shortcake for dessert.”

Strawberry shortcake is a bit of a treat, since baking day isn’t meant to be till tomorrow, but Travis is hardly going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

———

Most days go mostly the same as the week before—baking on Tuesdays and Fridays, laundry on Wednesday, and the rest of it. Of course there always seems to be something coming around to break it up, despite their best attempts at a routine. There’s always something needs buying, it seems, on a day they hadn’t planned to go to town, or rain when it needed to be sunny, or somehow unexpected free time that needs filling. 

On this particular Thursday, it’s raining  _ and  _ they need flour at the store for tomorrow  _ and  _ there’s free time (mostly on account of the rain). They both get dressed up a bit to go into town, because you always seem to run into someone you didn’t hope to see, and it wouldn’t do to be looking like half a mud puddle. For Nolan that usually means a dress and heels, rather than skirt and blouse. Travis knows to best be keeping up appearances she ought to do the same, but she mostly can’t be bothered. 

So they get dressed up, such as it is, and go into town to do their bit of shopping. They end up visiting with Claude and his wife, as well, and stop by the library to pick out a few new books. Neither Nolan nor Travis are especially fond of reading, but there isn’t always much else to do. They obviously love each other, but there’s only so much talking two people can do, even when one of them is Travis Konecny.

They drive home through the rain, lighter now. The sky is still dark, and will only get darker at this time of day, but there’s dinner to be cooked and animals to be checked on, and neither of them is particularly attracted to staying in town overlong, anyway. It’s a beautiful drive, everything green with the rain and the spring, the leaves on the trees still pale green. They get home and Nolan throws together something to eat while Travis makes sure the animals are settled for the evening.

There’s jazz on the radio after dinner, and they’re both wearing shoes a little nicer than usual, from the trip into town. Shoes for dancing. It seems the simplest thing in the world for Travis to reach her hands out to Patty and pull her up into a dance. They start off with a fast song, whirling quickly, smooth soles spinning easily on the carpet. They’re panting and laughing by the time it’s over, and Travis doubles over, hands on her knees while she breathes. The next song that comes on is slower, and TK can see Patty getting ready to sit back down. She reaches out, grabs her wrist, and pulls her in again. Billie Holiday is crooning about a lost lover, and Patty is  _ right there _ , she just can’t resist the urge to put her arms around her.

There’s probably something to be doing; there’s always something to be doing. Even now it’s dark out, and all the animals settled, there’s probably cleaning or sewing or something else, but TK’s not worried about any of that right now. She’s got a pretty girl in her arms, and the house is warm and dim and everything immediately pressing has been dealt with.

———

TK remembers the first time she saw Nolan, a few years that feel like a lifetime ago. They’d been in the city, girls coming in from anywhere near enough to drive to get a chance at a factory job. Nolan had been off in the corner, looking grouchy and utterly unapproachable, but Travis had been nervous too, so she’d seen through it. She’d been the tallest girl in the room, and gangly to match, her clothes unfashionably plain.

TK had gone right up to her, stuck her hand out while she was still walking. 

“I’m Travis Konecny, pleased to meet you.”

She’d replied in a low, mumbly tone of voice, “I’m Nolan Patrick,” and shaken TK’s hand almost hesitantly.

“I’d ask you what brings you here, but I suppose it’s obvious.”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. Obviously. I need a job, and this seems way more exciting than working at the library three days a week.”

“Yeah. More important, too.”

“Oh gosh, yes, of course. We’ve all got to do our part, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“So are you from far away? What’s your family like? How old are you?” A part of Travis knows she shouldn’t be pestering this poor girl with so many questions in a row, but a bigger part feels some kind of inescapable pull to  _ know _ her. They’ve only just met, but something about Nolan feels natural, feels like she was always going to meet her, to notice her, even if they hadn’t been in this factory, in this city, today. 

So they go on talking, and while Nolan never stops mumbling, she does seem willing to go on answering TK’s questions, and is clearly listening when TK shares in return. By the end of the day, which is almost entirely spent waiting around, TK knows Nolan’s favorite color, and how many sisters she has, and her favorite subject in school. 

Nolan, surely, knows all those things and far more, because TK can do nothing if not talk. Her grandmother is always telling her it’s not becoming for a young lady, but Travis can’t find it in her to care very much. There are just so many interesting thoughts to think, and if something’s interesting enough to be thinking about, then surely other people deserve to know as well.

They’d both gotten jobs at the factory, and ended up in the same boarding house too. It wasn’t as if they spent every moment together (far from it, really), but they spent more time with one another than with anyone else. Sometimes Travis wasn’t sure if Nolan really liked her at all, or if she was just putting up with her. She could tend to be kind of a steamroller, and maybe Nolan was just getting mashed, she worried.

Other times, though, she’d catch the tail end of a smile Nolan was trying to hide, or heard the way her voice got more mumbly when she was talking to someone else, or noticed the way Nolan always left an empty seat beside herself at dinner. Whenever anyone was looking for Nolan, they’d come to TK first, and often Travis would sit down to a meal, only to be greeted with a grunt and Nolan saying “so-and-so asked me about you today.” 

They went to the pictures on their days off, or the museum, or to walk in the park. Some of the other girls were always trying to meet boys, even when they weren’t supposed to, but Nolan never seemed interested in that scene. Not that there was much choice of men to meet, but it certainly didn’t stop most of the girls. It’s not that Nolan never went out, though, or never talked to the few young men she happened to meet, but that she never seemed enthusiastic or invested in it. Travis tried not to think too hard on that, tried not to draw any conclusions that would almost certainly be wrong, but. She did notice.

In the end, it only happened because Travis was running her mouth, as usual. They were sitting on Travis’s bed, door and windows all open to let in the breeze, a deck of cards spread out on the quilt between them, ostensibly playing rummy. Mostly, though, Travis was talking, and they were sneaking sips out of a flask they weren’t really meant to have.

“…and so  _ then, _ Patty,  _ then,  _ you’ll never believe, Mrs V came around the corner, right as Mary Anne was about to—“

“Trav.” Nolan said in her low, rumbling voice, cutting through Travis’s monologue. Normally TK might just talk right over her, because she  _ knows _ that Patty will say she doesn’t really care, but she’s going to go on telling her story anyway, because she knows there’s a chance that at the end, Patty’ll laugh. This time, though, she stops. Something in Nolan’s voice sounds more serious than she was expecting.

“Yes?”

Instead of saying anything, Nolan leans across the space between them and kisses her. It’s just a quick brush of lips, but it’s completely effective at getting Travis to stop talking. Even as Nolan pulls back, she just stares at her, her mouth hanging open. 

“Say something.” Nolan isn’t looking at her as she says it, her eyes darting around the room, her voice stretched thin.

“I’m going to close the door.” Travis says, rought and halting.

“What does that have to do with anything? Out of all the words you ever say, those are the ones you choose?” Nolan’s voice rises higher and higher, her breath coming quick. Travis gets up and closes the door quickly, sits down on the bed right next to her.

“I had to close the door so I could kiss you again.” And then she does.

So that’s how it starts. Or maybe, given how close they already were, how it middles. Not that much really changes, they still go out together with the other girls, they still go to work with everyone, and eat their meals side by side. But now, sometimes, they close the door in the evening, and spend their time on pursuits other than card games.

It shouldn’t be so easy, when it seems such a terrifying thing, and yet it is. They’re best friends, like they’ve always been. That’s what everybody sees, and it’s hardly as if they’re spoiled for potential boyfriends to turn down, anyway.

———

As the weeks go by, and it starts to heat up, things in the house get increasingly intolerable. For as cool as it was mid-May, it seems like the weather’s making up for lost time in early June. It’s one thing to be sleeping at night, when the windows are open and they can have a fan blowing a breeze in from outdoors. It’s another thing entirely to be making damson preserves in the kitchen at 3:00 with the biggest pot boiling gallons of water for the canning, and the second biggest pot boiling the fresh fruit and sugar down into a mush. A delicious, tart, sugary mush, but a very very hot mush all the same. 

Even with all the windows open and the fan blowing, it’s still not exactly comfortable inside, and Nolan knows it’s only going to get worse from there. She’s sweated through her blouse, tendrils of hair coming loose and frizzing up in the heat and humidity. Whenever God made the earth, and decided that plums would ripen just as the heat’s getting unbearable, He must have had Nolan’s personal eternal suffering in mind. Taking the pits out of the damsons had seemed like the worst this could possibly get, but clearly she’d been wrong. Even if it had taken half a day and included boiling, it still hadn’t been as sweaty as all  _ this _ boiling was. If Nolan hadn’t done it last year, she would’ve doubted it was even worth it. However, having acquired a taste for old-timey-damson preserves, there was no going back. 

So she stirred the pot some more, wiped her forehead, and reminded herself that it’d all be worth it come December. She’d take a bath later, it’d be fine. Making the preserves didn’t take all day, but it was the only real thing on her schedule for today. Well, besides making provisions for dinner. She didn’t want to cook a hot meal, and like as not, TK wouldn’t really want to eat one either.

By the time 6 o’clock rolled around, she’d managed to get all the preserves canned and set to cool, and had cut up some cold chicken and bread to go with a fresh salad. She still had a bit before they were meant to have dinner, though, and went upstairs to hop in the shower. She ran the water as cool as was really comfortable, peeled off her clothes, and hopped in. As she began to wash, she heard the bathroom door creak.

“Mind if I join you?” Travis asks from the other side of the shower curtain.

Nolan smiles, privately. “Not at all,” she says, a little louder than usual to be heard over the sound of the water.

She can hear Travis taking off her clothes, the whisper of fabric against itself as her blouse falls to the ground, and then the curtain sliding back. She climbs in, and Nolan steps aside to make room for her under the spray.

“That’s cold! What the hell?”

“Of course it’s cold, I was sweating my ass off all day long!” 

“But showers aren’t meant to be cold,” TK protests.

“Okay, okay.” Nolan turns up the hot water, but not nearly as much as Travis would probably like.

The shower takes longer than is strictly necessary, because they get distracted kissing and feeling each other’s soapy bodies, but they’re both too hungry to stay in there forever. They dress in casual clothes and go downstairs to eat.

“So, what did you do today?” Travis says, falsely conversationally, as if she doesn’t already know exactly what Nolan did today, and every day. Nolan rolls her eyes and gestures at the counter covered in jars of preserves.

“I made damson preserves. Some of them are for us and the rest are for the store, I’ve already promised them to Mrs H by the end of the week.”

“Nice. It’s just the beginning of damsons, I think, we’ve probably got another few weeks or so before they’re done, so don’t worry about saving out too many jars for us just yet.”

“Not to mention the other fruit I’ve already put by, the strawberries and blueberries. And there’s blackberries and raspberries yet to come, aren’t there?”

“That’s the hope, although it remains to be seen how many we’ll really be able to get. The birds have been at the bushes something fierce, and with all that rain we had earlier some things didn’t ripen quite right. And in any case we never get more than a few quarts of each, so.”

A body might think it’d be dull, talking business after a day spent doing it, but it’s not. Canning the damsons is work, undoubtedly, but there’s nothing else like knowing how many jars she ended up with, how many plants TK has cultivated, the life they’re growing together. 

It’s right at the end of strawberries, the last few just getting picked before it’s truly too hot for them, so they have strawberry shortcake again for dessert. There’s always the risk of getting tired of it, but this time feels special, since Nolan knows they won’t have it again for a year. Some people in town nowadays get fresh strawberries any time of the year, but that feels  _ wrong _ , somehow. Those strawberries are never very good, and it’s just not how it was meant to be. If people were meant to eat strawberries in December, they’d live in Australia or something. 

They go to sleep with all the windows open, the fan blowing, and a single sheet over top of them. It’s not near as hot as it’s going to get, so it seems unwise to already be taking out all the stops, but, needs must. At least that night they’ll be able to be comfortable while they sleep, rather than later in the summer when they’ll be kept awake by the heat.

The next day dawns a little cooler, the sky clear and pink. It’s Thursday again already, which means baking, which means another day in the kitchen. At least the oven only has to be hot for the time it takes the bread to bake, though, rather than a pot simmering away all day. And while the bread is rising, Nolan has time to get to some of the things that fell by the wayside yesterday, some of the cleaning and such. 

She’s not much of a one for cleaning, would be content to let most of it fall by the wayside, but she can hear her mother’s voice in the back of her head, saying “Now you know that’s no way to keep a home, Nolan,” whenever she lets clothes pile up on the chair, or magazines overflow the coffee table. So she begrudgingly keeps things tidy, does her best to keep things clean. TK’s occupied enough on the farm that she’s not especially bothered if the bed linens get washed once a week, or if the carpets are clean. If they were really bothered about it, they could get a vacuum, but it rather seems an unnecessary expense at the moment. No one’s coming around for tea that’s going to be inspecting the carpets. Or at all.

So she bakes the bread and tidies the house, gets a decent meal on the table for lunch, plans dinner. Sometimes she wonders how she manages to fill her days so effectively—on paper her to-do lists never look very long, and yet they work out to take up all her time. Even if she has a spare moment, there always seems to be a long list of things welling up to fill it. She tries to keep the serious mending to Mondays, but there’s always something that rips that they need sooner, or some little project she’s too excited to wait all week to work on. Or they run out of bread on a Monday, and all the mending gets pushed later as a result. Or some animal gets loose, or things get really unbearably busy in the fields, and TK needs her to come help. Something. 

———

When the war ended, and the factory tapered off production, all the girls knew their jobs were coming to an end long before they were actually let go. They talked about what they might do next, whether their sweethearts were coming home from war to get married, or whether they were trying to rebuild an entire lifetime of hopes and dreams without them.

One of the girls in the boarding house was from a big family from somewhere further south--Becky had something in the neighborhood of fifty first cousins--and had lost her only brother in Italy. She and Nolan had never been especially close, and of course it was only harder after Jimmy died, but through one turn of events and another, it came to be common knowledge that she’d inherited the family farm. And also that she had no intention whatsoever of going back there. 

Nolan came upon her one day while she was expounding the immense unfairness of her situation.

“I didn’t work this hard at this job so that I could go home and be some farmer’s wife! It’s only a cruel accident the place is mine anyway. I don’t want to spend the next 50 years remembering all the plans my brother had for it, or sitting around some backwater town chasing chickens! I’ve half a mind to put it up for sale, never mind that Gran would have a cow. Hell, if I found anyone who actually wanted to move to goddamn Roxboro of all places, I might just let them have it.” 

Nolan didn’t say anything, just nodded along and tired to look sympathetic, but she filed the information away for later. Becky’d hardly been serious, surely. 

A few weeks later, Nolan and Travis were playing cards, and she brought it up. TK had been talking a mile a minute, saying something about her mother’s bridge club and also somehow the President and also Rita Hayworth, and when she eventually came to a stop, Nolan seized the opportunity.

“Did you hear Becky talking about the farm the other week?” she said, trying to be quiet and slow and inconspicuous about it.

“Yeah, I did. I heard she’s none too happy about the idea of being a farmer. Too bad we can’t switch places, I’d like nothing more than for my brother to decide he wants to move to the city after all, but of course he never will. Did I tell you, Patty, what I heard last week from my mother--”

“Travis.”

“What?”

“I heard Becky saying she didn’t want to be a farmer so much she had the idea to find a buyer for the land.”

“Was she serious?”

“I’m not sure. Probably not, but.”

And that’s how that happens. Not exactly, of course, but that’s where it starts, and it goes on in rather the same convoluted, ridiculous, accidental fashion.

———

For all that May had been chilly, and June had been relatively temperate, July is  _ hot _ . It starts to really heat up at the end of June, but by mid-July it’s really quite unbearable. So unbearable that some of the vegetables sort of shrivel up and die in the heat and the sun and the inexorable dryness. Tommy down the road keeps saying it’s a mild summer, but Tommy from down the road has also been living here for sixty five years. 

The cucumbers are still making cucumbers, but the zucchini seem to have been killed completely. And no luck with peppers this year either--some deer came and ate all the baby leaves and peppers clean off, even on the hot pepper plants. The tomatoes were doing alright for blossom end rot this year, but the deer had been at them as well, and it was a bit dry for them on top of it. Okra were coming up like a weed, though, faster than TK could keep up with picking them, and melons as well. 

Tommy down the road has all manner of melons, but he also has all manner of children and hired help. It’s all that Travis can do to keep up with what they’ve got as it is. She’s still working out the kinks of what and how much of it to grow to keep food on their own table, and to have enough money to keep the lights on. Back when Becky’s mother had been a child, it’d been a much bigger farm, with hired hands to keep it running, and one main crop they counted on every year. Travis didn’t know shit about growing tobacco, and hadn’t really had the space or the manpower to keep up with all that. And in any case, they were building something here. It was only their third year on the farm, no reason to expect that this was all it’d ever amount to.

So she meddles along with the tomatoes, feels momentarily bad about the peppers, and then spends the rest of the week weeding the okra plot and picking the okra fast as she could before they got the size of her forearm. The melons are good fun--not watermelons, because Nolan doesn’t like them, though she’d never admit it. Cantaloupe instead. Patty’s a fiend for cantaloupe, could eat a whole one in one sitting if given half a chance. And TK is extremely in the business of giving Patty things she likes. 

She wakes up early one morning, fumbles through getting dressed and going down to let the dog out and do the most pressing pre-breakfast chores. And then she comes back and very quietly makes pancakes and cut-up cantaloupe for breakfast, and has it ready with coffee when Nolan comes downstairs at 7:30. It’s just an ordinary Tuesday, but she’s in a romancing sort of a mood. There ain’t really any reason for it, and that’s perhaps the best reason of all. Patty goes all pink when she sees it, flush crawling across her cheeks and down into the neck of her blouse.

“You didn’t have to do that, Teeks. You know I would’ve had something for us later on.”

“Yeah, I know. I just wanted to.”

It hardly seemed humanly possible for one person to get any redder, but somehow Nolan managed it. 

“Thanks,” she gets out, after an awkward pause, all mumbly and shy and low. Clearly Travis hasn’t been doing this enough, if this is the reaction she could be getting every time.

They go out on the porch to eat, sitting crammed around the corner of the table next to one another, rather than across from each other like usual. TK hooks her ankle around Nolan’s delicate bare foot, scootches her chair all up on her. It doesn’t make for very easy eating conditions, but it serves her desire to be as close as possible. It’s not too hot yet, still probably in the low 80s, and there’s a little breeze blowing. There’s animal noises coming from round the back of the house, and some bug noise, though hardly as much as’ll come later on in the day. 

“These are good, actually, where’d you learn to do that?” Patty says, once she’s recovered a little, not to mention had a chance to drink half her coffee.

Travis gasps, fake offended. “I’ll have you know that Mama Konecny would never let a child of hers grow up without knowing how to cook at least  _ something _ ! Despite my best efforts to the contrary.” 

Nolan laughs a little, rough and grudging. “Well, far be it from me to criticize anything Mama Konecny ever taught you.”

“Just because we didn’t all have fancy mothers at home who knew how to cook  _ beef burg-onion _ \--”

This time she laughs outright. “You mean boeuf bourguignon, there bud?”

“Oh  _ what _ ever! You know full well what I meant!” TK is torn between the desire to defend herself and her family and also the knowledge that Pat doesn’t actually care about any of it, the desire to just be here in this moment, laughing. 

The rest of the week passes without incident. TK picks tomatoes in great quantities, and the majority of the ones she brings into the house get canned for the winter. Some she sets aside to take down to the farmstand down the road, and some to take to the market, depending on the day of the week. It’s always a balancing act, between selling what they need to sell to get the money to cover their expenses, and keeping what they need to keep to be self sufficient. It seems a silly thing to buy frozen food in winter, given that they have enough to feed an army in the middle of July.

———

The first winter at the farm is hard. TK knew shit about running a farm, of course, but she’d never actually tried to do it all by herself. And the Rogers’s had been growing nothing but tobacco, so the farm wasn’t really set up for what Nolan and Travis wanted to do anyway. All this to say, that the first winter was a lean one, and fairly stressful. They weren’t in any danger of running out of money, exactly, as much that it was a period of swallowing their pride and asking the neighbors for help with things, and dipping into savings they’d hoped not to dip into. 

Nolan’s face was pinched with worry more often than TK would’ve liked, but she was characteristically reluctant to talk about what’s on her mind. Travis tried to bring it up, in a way, one day when they were sitting next to the fire. It wasn’t actually very cold in the house, they do have the heat, but the fire was warm and cozy and smelled good. Travis had her back to it, mostly, sitting on a footstool and facing Nolan at the dining table.

“Christmas coming up in a few weeks, Patty.”

“Yeah.” Nolan took a deep breath in as she answered. Pinched her lips together.

“What are we going to do for it? It’s our first Christmas really together, I figure we ought to do something fun,” TK said, more cheerfully than how she really felt.

“Like what?” Nolan said, perking up at least a little.

“Well. When I was growing up we always did church and then the big meal on Christmas Eve, and then stockings in the morning. Mama would make us sticky buns for breakfast, and she and Dad would drink a cocktail at ten in the morning.” Travis smiled at the memory, thrown back to the Christmases of her childhood, her parents always doing their best to give their children a warm and happy holiday, even when times were difficult. Which was rather what she was trying to do then, as well. 

“We did our big meal on Christmas Day. And we’d decorate the tree on Christmas Eve and leave it up until Epiphany.” Nolan offered.

“What? Decorate the tree on Christmas Eve? But then you barely get to enjoy it!” TK was playing up her outrage slightly, trying to get a genuine smile out of Patty. It worked.

“What would you have us do, put the tree up on December first and have it dead and sheddin’ needles by the 25th?”

“At least then you’d get to enjoy it all during the ‘Holiday Season.’”

“Point, I suppose.”

In the end, they compromise on putting the tree up on a quiet Saturday evening midway through the month. They’d gone about an hour out of town to get it, up towards the mountains where it was the slightest bit snowy, and they could cut down their own tree. Nolan laughed at the tree TK picked, almost too big for the two of them to carry. They needed help tying it onto the roof of the car, and getting it down again when they were home was challenging.

Neither of them had very many ornaments, just a few old things that they’d brought from home, so the tree was mainly decorated with honest to god strings of popcorn, like something out of Little House on the Prairie. They spent a few cozy evenings making other decorations out of paper and wood, little drawings and paintings with a string through the top. It didn’t look bad in the end, looked homey and  _ theirs _ . Travis’ messy writing and drawings, and Nolan’s much neater ones. 

They’re not, strictly speaking, the churchgoing type, but they went on Christmas Eve, sung carols with the other people from town, saw the little kids put on the Nativity Pageant, all the usual Christmas things that TK remembered from her childhood. When they got home, there’s some Christmas program on television they could watch, but neither of them were particularly inclined, more content to spend time close together in front of the fire, drinking mulled wine and listening to the radio and TK reading aloud from A Christmas Carol. 

Christmas morning dawned clear and bright, the ground hard with frost, muddy tire tracks frozen up into sharp peaks. Travis went out to tend to the animals before breakfast, wearing a big sweater and rain boots over her pajamas, and Nolan got the dough set up for the next step of their sticky buns. When all the necessary chores were done, and a fresh pot of coffee was hot and waiting, they settled in to open their stockings. They’d opted not to do a full host of presents, neither of them wanting to say that it isn’t really something they had money for at the moment. 

Nolan put a clementine in the toe of both stockings the night before, because it was what her family had always done. They’d mostly made each other little tokens, bought a few things at the store. Travis gave Nolan a tube of lipstick in her favorite color. Nolan gave Travis a bar of soap nicer than what she’d pick out for herself. Nolan knitted them both matching mittens, and they wore them out afterwards, on a long walk around the farm and the surrounding area. Travis’s family had always gone for walks on Christmas Day, and they shared the tradition together.

It was a quiet Christmas, not really what either of them had done growing up, but not alien either. The first winter was just the two of them, most of the time, still trying to figure out who they were together and what they were doing and how to do it, but Christmas morning, hot coffee and oranges by the fire, was a happy little moment.

———

August sees Nolan doing even more pickling and canning. The cucumber vines are still valiantly producing cucumbers in excess of the number two people can reasonably eat in a week. They sell some, of course, but Nolan loves a pickle, so TK’s been careful to set aside enough to keep them in pickles all winter. The tomato plants are at their peak, making loads of red and purple and yellow tomatoes that are pretty as a picture. Again, the majority of them are sent off to the market, but Nolan cans some as well, boiling them and taking the skins off before packing them into tall jars. They’re not as beautiful once they’re canned, and they’re not as good for nearly as many things, but in the middle of winter, a bowl of chili or pasta with these tomatoes will taste better than anything with canned tomatoes from the store. 

Nolan is pickling on a shockingly hot day, the kind of day that “dog days of summer” was invented to describe. It’s not nearly as miserable as it’d been on the day of the damson preserves, because the pickles don’t get boiled at all until the very end, but it’s still hot. Her hair is surely a mess, but she’s learned from last time, because today she’s wearing a cotton playsuit repurposed from old curtains. No need to worry if it gets sweaty, or stained, or smells like vinegar, and her arms and back are open to any stray breeze that should happen to pass through the kitchen. 

TK comes into the kitchen in the middle of the afternoon that day.

“What are you doing here?” Nolan asks, more surprised than really irritated.

“I just wanted a glass of tea, thought we had some left over from Sunday lunch.”

“We do, and there’s a bit of lemon if you want to put that with it.”

“Nice.” Travis leans all into Nolan’s space, looks down into the pot she’s stirring.

“What’cha got there?”

“Oh, like it’s not obvious,” Nolan snorts. The entire kitchen stinks of vinegar, and fresh crushed dill underlying it. 

“Hush, you, I’m just makin’ conversation.” And then TK smacks a kiss onto her cheek and ducks away to get her glass of tea. 

Nolan breathes in like she’s going to scold TK for getting in her face, but when Travis looks over, she’s blushing, smiling down into her pot of pickle brine. 

———

And then, somehow, suddenly, August melts into September and the temperatures come back down. Tomatoes don’t go out of season overnight, but they no longer appear in the kitchen in staggering quantities. 

Travis plants the second round of peas on an unseasonably cool afternoon in mid-September. Butternut squash and beets, too. It’s a bit of a gamble--they’ve had an unexpectedly mild summer, and if it gets too cool too fast it won’t do for the peas. The squash should be okay, they’re a little more hardy, but after her experience with the peas the first time around, TK is a little nervous. They did come up in the end, though, so maybe it’s not really warranted. 

Nolan’s birthday is in September, and the weather is perfect. Dawn brings clear, deep blue skies and crisp weather. The fair is coming up, and there’s a fair amount for Nolan to be doing, so she doesn’t spend the whole day lying around. She’s got to test a recipe for zucchini bread, and make the first batch of apple butter. Theoretically there’s a quilt she’s supposed to be submitting as well, but that’s a lot all for one person, and she’s barely touched it since June. TK’s fattening up one of the pigs to show, but that’s more of a day-to-day thing than something you can knock out all at once. 

The zucchini bread recipe is a little tricky. Nolan’s made at least three iterations so far, and none of them turned out particularly good. It’s not one of the things her mother made growing up, but the zucchini crop turned out acceptably large, in the end, so she needs something to do with the excess. Zucchini don’t really do for canning, after all, and Nolan’s pretty sure TK will riot if she has to eat another plate of sauteed zucchini. She’s sick of it herself, honestly, but she’s trying to put on a good face because she knows Travis is a little worried and self conscious about the amount she’s been bringing in.  _ At least _ , Nolan thinks,  _ it’s not eggplant _ . Last summer it had been eggplant, and neither of them had any taste for it whatsoever. 

All that, though, is not to say that her birthday went unacknowledged. Maybe it’s a bit weird to bake your own birthday cake, but Nolan likes to bake, so she doesn’t worry about it. It’s a poundcake, from Aunt Gertrude’s Cheap Poundcake Recipe, which is nothing special but is also very special, to Nolan. She does a bit of whipped cream for it as well, although that’s a chore and a half, with all the whipping. Even with one of those hand-crank egg beater things, it’s still a pain. They’re having pasta for dinner, because it’s her favorite meal, and they’ve got to do something with all those tomatoes anyway.

Travis comes in a bit early that day, as early as she can reasonably do without neglecting some major task. 

“Hello! Happy Birthday! How are you?” TK says, extremely cheerful and high-energy for someone who has to be pretty tired. Nolan smiles, a private little thing. She’s gotten better at showing her smiles to TK, but sometimes she feels so unbearably fond that it’s just too much.

“It was good,” she says, quietly. She knows Travis can hear the smile in her voice. “I baked some more zucchini bread. This one has cinnamon.”

“Oh, joy. Just what I’ve always wanted.”

“Hush, you. If I don’t make at least a decent showing at the fair the neighbors will never let me hear the end of it. How’s your pig, anyway?”

“Well, let’s just say I’m mighty glad I don’t have to teach her to be well-behaved and walk in a circle like the 4-H kids.”

Nolan laughs. “No, I suppose those days are behind us.”

“Thank God, honestly.”

They continue to chat as they eat, discussing the fair and the weather and the gossip that Travis had heard while she’d been taking the produce to market yesterday. 

She’s acceptably impressed with Nolan’s whipped cream, and the poundcake is delicious. Nolan’s mama will always tell you that Aunt Gertrude’s cheap is basically the simplest thing in the world, but Travis seems happy enough. Travis sings Happy Birthday, puts a candle on the table for Nolan to blow out. Teases her about her blush. 

It’s chilly enough outside that inside feels cozy and warm, only candlelight and dim lamps illuminating the room. They put on an Etta Jones record and dance, slow and sleepy and quiet. 

———

They don’t have much in the way of apples, only three gnarled looking trees, and what they have isn’t really meant for selling anyway. It’s enough for them to have a few weeks of nice snacks and a pie every year, though. The trees are up near the back of the house, so TK knows Nolan’s been keeping an eye on them. They’ve had one or two apples sliced up at breakfast, so far, but the majority of them are still green on the tree. 

  
Last year, in late summer, one of the tree branches had broken off in a storm, leaving a dozen perfect, tiny, hard, bitter little apples languishing in the grass. It had been a shame to see them go inedible, but Nolan and Travis had had a fun Sunday afternoon playing softball with them, seeing how far they could hit them in the yard. This year, thankfully, that hasn’t happened. Travis doesn’t wish for the tree to get more destroyed, obviously, but she loved that halcyon afternoon under a deep blue sky, trying to make fun out of the minor misfortune. 

This year there are no apple softball games, but there are apples for pie and fried-apples-and-sausage and applesauce. Nolan doesn’t set any of them aside for the market, choosing instead to make all the amazing apple treats that they didn’t get to fully enjoy the year before. TK knows Nolan doesn’t care for apples nearly as much as the fruit from earlier in the summer, but she gamely makes them into everything Travis loves and eats it all the same.

———

They go to the fair at the end of September. Neither the pig nor Nolan’s zucchini bread win any prizes, but TK wins a stuffed bear at the bow-and-arrow accuracy shooting game, and then eats too much funnel cake and feels sick. It’s great. 

After the fair, though, the pig’s days are numbered. She’s gotten rather too big to be dealt with anymore, and their stock of sausage from the year before has basically run out. One crisp morning in early October, TK herds Mary Mergatroid Alfreda up a ramp and into the back of the truck. Nolan can’t bring herself to watch, but she listens anxiously from in the house as Mary squeals. And then the truck starts and TK peels out of the drive and Nolan tries her best to go about the rest of her work. 

TK comes back a few hours later, looking slightly miserable. Neither of them really like the reality of butchering the pig, but it’s a vaguely unpleasant necessity. It helps, at least a little, that by the end of their lives, they’ve become massive and grouchy and a bit terrifying, rather than cute and sweet and pink. For whatever reason, the chickens don’t give the same bother. Mainly, perhaps, because they keep them for their eggs, so they don’t have to be killed quite so often, but also probably because there’s less of a production in their demise.

She goes to pick up the meat from the pig a few days later, which is also unpleasant, as is breakfast the next morning when Nolan serves Mary with biscuits and damson preserves. Travis knows she shouldn’t be this sensitive over it, not growing up on a farm like she did, but her family never kept a pig. Mary was sort of an experiment for them. TK’s not sure if she’ll have the stomach to repeat it. 

They only have two cows, just one full grown and one young female, not old enough to make milk yet. The older cow is not really very old either, but they’d gotten her when they first moved to the farm. Becky’s family hadn’t really kept animals, aside from a few chickens, but one of the neighbors sold them Lillian when they first came to the farm, so they could have fresh milk and butter. 

Then Travis had decided to get the vet round to impregnate Lillian, since cows that have had babies more recently make nicer milk. And the baby, Martha, was awfully cute. She was born late in the season, after all their neighbor’s cows had already calved, and she was littler than all their neighbors calves as well. Travis had loved on her incessantly at first, always going back to the barn to check on her and bring both cows treats. Nolan would’ve said that she was spoiling a cow, and for what, but TK knew that she was infatuated with Martha as well, with her big brown eyes and floppy ears.

They’re lucky both animals are female, and therefore meant for keeping as dairy cows. If one of them had been a bull, they’d have surely had to butcher it, or have it sold for butchering, and Nolan’s not sure that either of them could’ve really dealt with the reality of that situation, not after cuddling the baby calf and feeding it by hand.

Livestock are difficult, really. The cows and pig and chickens are useful, but living things are hard. You get so attached to them, and something always happens. Nolan’s no stranger to the ways of the world, as they relate to farm animals (or hunting), but it’s still hard, to imagine that if Lillian’s baby had been a male, they’d be fattening him up for the slaughter right about now. 

———

Halloween isn’t much of a thing for Nolan and Travis, not many kids around to come knocking on the door. Travis grows a few pumpkins, which Nolan happily displays on the porch (along with some weirdly shaped butternut squash). This year, they’re invited to a party at the Giroux’s, so Nolan decides to arrange some costumes for the pair of them.

“What do you mean we can’t go as something matching?” Travis asks.

“We’re not ten, Trav, I’m not going to wear the same outfit as you.”

“I’m not suggesting matching outfits, I’m suggesting something coordinated. Like, peanut butter and jelly. Or ham and eggs!”

“You want me to dress up as a ham?” Nolan is utterly unimpressed.

“Well. I suppose not. I don’t know what that would look like,” Travis says, more subdued but still smiling. 

“What about like, ghosts. Or witches?”

“You could be a witch, you’ve got plenty enough black clothes for it,” Travis says, snickering.

“Oh hush, you. You’re never a ghost, though, I don’t think you own a single piece of clothing that’s still white.”

“Yeah, because I’m laboring away in the fields to produce a decent living for my wife!” Travis knows she’s being overdramatic and ridiculous, plays it up to try to get Nolan to laugh. It works.

“You could be the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz,” Nolan suggests.

“Only if you’re Dorothy.”

“Well, obviously. I’m hardly gonna be the Tin Man.”

Sewing Halloween costumes isn’t exactly the number one thing on Nolan’s to-do list, but she’s excited about it, so it happens. They’re nothing complex, just simple designs made up out of old tablecloths and bedsheets and other clothes. They are, in TK’s opinion, totally amazing and recognizable and will definitely be better than anyone else’s costume at the Giroux’s party. Not that Travis is biased or anything.

Nolan fixes her hair like Dorothy’s, and paints a pair of mostly-worn out shoes red for the occasion. Travis sticks all her hair up inside the silly hat Nolan had made, and delights in actually being able to wear work boots to a social event.

They arrive at the party a little late, because they’d gotten distracted kissing when they were supposed to be getting ready. The Giroux's house is decorated for the occasion, with tissue paper ghosts hanging from the edge of the porch and a drawing of a bat stuck on the door. Warmth and light are spilling out into the chilly evening, the sky deep blue bleeding into black as it gets dark. TK can hear children running and shouting inside, and music playing somewhere.

“Nolan, Travis, I’m so glad you could be here!” Ryanne exclaims, spotting them lingering outside the doorway. 

“Thank you so much for having us! We’re really glad to be here!” Travis says. 

“We brought some cookies,” Nolan offers, holding out a wrapped tray. 

“Great, thank you!” Ryanne says. “Why don’t you all come on in. We’ve got some dancing going, or you can play games with the kids if you’d prefer.”

“What sort of games?” Nolan asks   
  


“Oh, just bobbing for apples and pin the tail on the black cat, that sort of thing.”

Travis grins wickedly. “I would  _ love _ to bob for apples.” 

“Well, I’m sure you can persuade Claude or somebody to do it with you, so you’re not competing with literal children.” Ryanne is smiling too, like she knows this is going to end damply and noisily.

They head inside, and Nolan accepts a cup of hot apple cider from one of the other women. Travis heads straight for the back porch, where all the husbands are gathered with beers and cigarettes. She grabs a beer and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, and settles in to watch the children fight over bobbing for apples.

It’s the usual group of guys, Claude and Jake and Wayne, guys who came back from the war all in one piece, and some of the younger ones as well, Morgan and Joel and Carter, boys too young to have served. There’s definitely a divide there, and not just one based on age. TK is left out of the dichotomy based on her sex, which serves to sidestep a large amount of awkwardness that could exist. Not to say that there’s not awkwardness; the nature of her and Nolan’s relationship always puts them a little at odds with some people.

Everyone’s in a good mood tonight though, laughing and talking and drinking too much to care about any of that. 

After the kids have gotten bored of bobbing for apples, Joel raises a challenging eyebrow at Travis and grins.

“Want to go?” 

TK’s hardly one to turn down a competition, even one that’s got better than even odds she ends up soaking wet. She nods, grins back.

“Let’s go.”

The tub the Giroux’s have set up is wide and not very deep, which means they both have to get on their knees in order to get their faces into it. TK settles down, glad that her costume is masculine and comedic rather than something she’d be worried about ruining, between the water and the mud on the ground. 

“On your mark, get set, go!” Claude bellows, and the two of them stick their faces into the tub. The way the kids have been playing it, you have thirty seconds to pick out as many apples as possible. Travis fishes around blindly in the water, grabbing the stem of a particularly large apple in her teeth. She loses it trying to get it out of the tub, though, while Bee drops his first apple on the ground. Then, while he’s ducking back for another, she reaches out and splashes him. It’s not sporting, but she doesn’t care. 

Joel jumps back, spluttering, and looks at her in betrayal. Then he splashes her back. Claude’s stopwatch forgotten, they throw water all over one another, laughing. The rest of the group backs away, trying not to get caught in the crossfire. Nolan, Ryanne, and Morgan stand huddled in the doorway, out of range of the water, looking rather judgmental. TK doesn’t seem to care, though, just throws another handful of water at Bee, keeps giggling until she can’t anymore. 

They run out of steam pretty quickly, around the time when their wet clothes start to get actually chilly and uncomfortable. Maybe it should be awkward once the silliness wears off, but it’s not. They’re all friends here, blowing off steam in the middle of a really busy time of year. Travis stands up and goes over to Patty. Nolan backs away at first, laughing and shrinking from Travis’ damp embrace, before putting her arm around her shoulders. 

“What were you thinking there bud?” she asks.

“Oh, you know, whatever it takes to stop Joel from winning at something.”

Joel snorts, says “I’m not sure either of us really won, there.”

“Fair enough.” Travis says. 

They stay a little longer after that, but not much. Travis is pretty wet, and Nolan wants to take her home and crawl into bed together. They say their goodbyes, collect Nolan’s now cookie-less plate from Ryanne, and walk out to the truck together. Nolan puts her arm back around TK’s shoulders, pulls her close, and kisses her up against the side of the truck before they get in. 

“You’re absolutely ridiculous, you know that, right?” she says.

“Well, obviously it’s working for you, so......” TK drawls. She laughs a little, both at her own comment and at the look on Nolan’s scrunched up face. 

It’s too cold to stay outside in damp clothes, so they get in, turn up the heat, and drive home through the darkness.

———

Travis comes in from the garden one day, sun low on the horizon, chill and darkness gathering around her like a cloak. Nolan is standing at the stove, dressed in a plaid wool skirt and too-big sweater. She’s barefoot, with a pair of hand knitted socks over the feet of her stockings. TK thinks she looks like the definition of coziness. She comes up behind her, gets on her tiptoes to nudge her chilly nose at the back of Nolan’s neck. 

“What are you making?”

“What do you think?” Nolan snarks (unnecessarily, Travis thinks). 

“Beet soup?”

“Yeah.” Nolan sounds quietly, privately happy, like knowing that Travis could guess that she’d made her favorite thing for dinner was a victory. Maybe it shouldn’t be, after so long of living together, but it also still sort of is. “There’s bread, too. And a little bit of chicken from yesterday’s dinner.” 

“Thanks sugar,” Travis says, too soft. 

Nolan shifts a little uncomfortably, at the softness of TK’s tone or at the endearment or at the praise or at all three. “Here, it’s just about ready, I was really waiting for you.” 

By November it’s all together too cold to eat on the porch, so they’ve got a little round table set up next to the fireplace. It’s still set with their placemats and napkins from lunch, so Travis just brings over the silverware, pours them both a glass of water. 

They eat dinner together, their feet touching under the table, crossed at the ankle in contentment. They talk, of course, because Travis has plenty to say about what’s happening with the animals and the few remaining crops, and questions to ask Nolan about what she’d done that day, but the moments of silence that come up between topics are easy. Thanksgiving is coming up quite soon, and they’re going to see Nolan’s parents for it. Travis can tell she’s a little uneasy, a little unsure of what they might say or think. 

It’s not a far drive, only a few hours, but it’s far enough that they won’t be able to just run home if anyone says anything remotely discomfiting. Nolan’s parents are aware of the situation, and they haven’t said anything bad about it, but Travis also hasn’t really properly met them yet. It’s one thing to hear that your daughter is committed and making a life with someone you might not have chosen but don’t have real reason to dislike, and another thing entirely to be confronted with the physical reality of that relationship in front of your very eyes. 

So, TK knows she’s stressed, and has been working to try to make it better. Not in any obvious way, not by actually addressing the problem at hand (which might make Nolan break out into hives) but by going over the top with cheer and happiness and togetherness. She brought her breakfast in bed last Sunday, and went into town to buy her a length of fabric she knew she’d been coveting. 

It might be easy to look at their relationship and think that TK is constantly bothering poor Nolan, who does nothing but cook and clean and do laundry for her, but Travis knows that’s not how it works. In her weaker moments, she might worry sometimes that she doesn’t have enough to contribute, that she’s not pulling her weight. In a vulnerable, migraine stricken moment, though, Nolan had admitted that she worried a lot that she was too high maintenance, too cold and silent and not enough for Travis. TK’s immediate reaction had been to reassure her, to tell her that she doesn’t care about those things, that she’s happy to help, that she knows Nolan loves her even if she doesn’t say it. That is to say that it helps, sometimes, to know that she’s not alone in her insecurities. The two of them just  _ work _ together, even if it doesn’t always seem to make sense from the outside.

As it gets colder, they’ve been lighting the fire more often in the evenings, and spending time curled together on the couch or on the rug in front of the fireplace. Nolan maybe likes to pretend that she’s not a total snuggle bug, but Travis knows better. It’s only so many times that someone can “accidentally” end up with their head in your lap before you start to understand they just need to be loved on a little sometimes. 

———

Winter doesn’t mean they’re trapped alone together with nothing to do. For one thing, it’s not Minnesota or anything, there’s not much snow to speak of. For a second thing, the animals don’t  _ all _ get butchered in Fall, and still need tending to every day. For a third thing, they have the truck and could go somewhere if they wanted. But winter does mean things on the farm slow down a little. They can lie in bed together a little longer in the morning, if they want to. 

One December morning, Nolan cracks an eye open, pokes her head a little further out of the blankets. It’s cold in the room, but plenty warm under the covers, in part because of the electric blanket they have buried in there somewhere. Light is coming in through the window, but it’s still pretty wan and pale. TK is snoring softly beside her, a warm line along her side. They’re not much prone to cuddling overnight, because Nolan’s a stomach sleeper and TK moves around too much. But on days like these, they always wake up tangled together, gravitating towards each other’s warmth in the middle of the night.

Nolan rolls over, looks out the window. It’s a little snowy, mostly gray and cold looking. The roof of the truck is still clear, so it hasn’t snowed any more in the night. She scrunches up her nose and turns over in the other direction, puts her arm around Travis’s middle and buries her nose in her hair. She could get up, go fix something to eat, go feed the chickens, go do all manner of things. But it’s December, and winter is still pretty new, so lying in bed all warm and cozy and snuggling is still a little novel, and it’s close enough to Christmas that she’s in an indulgent sort of mood. 

After a while of lying there, Travis starts to stir, snores giving way to small sleepy noises. 

“Time’s’it? she groans.

“Early enough, maybe seven.”

“Mmm okay,” Travis hums “Let’s just. Stay like this. For a minute.” She rolls over just a little, enough to kiss Nolan on the lips, warm and happy and comfortable. Other people might complain about morning breath, but having TK like this, soft and pliant in her arms, Nolan just can’t bring herself to care. 

They do get up, eventually. Travis pulls on heavy pants and a sweater and goes downstairs to start the outside chores. Nolan gets dressed as well, fixes her hair and starts breakfast. Nothing fancy, just some toast and eggs and bacon. She puts the radio on and listens to the morning news as she cooks. 

It was right around this time that the war started, so the radio announcer is doing a sort of “On This Day” program about what had happened after Pearl Harbor. She’s not sure how long they’ll keep on doing this, but for now it serves as a reminder of how much things have changed. In 1941 she never envisioned any of this happening, didn’t imagine the factory or the farm or, least of all, Travis. But none of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for that day. Even as she’s thinking about it she’s checking herself, like “Of course I’m not happy it happened, only that if it  _ had _ to happen that it ended like this for  _ me, personally _ .” As if someone would overhear the inside of her brain and take her gladness the wrong way.

So she’s pensive when TK comes in, chilly and smelling a little of the barn and carrying the newspaper. Travis sees it, sees her thinking too hard, and sticks one cold hand up the back of Nolan’s sweater, just to make her shriek and giggle. It works. Travis is good like that, good at seeing when she needs to be taken out of her own head. 

“I can’t believe you! Your hands are freezing!” she says.

“Sorry,” TK says, not sounding even a little bit sorry. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Just the usual. There’s coffee if you want some, and the toast will just be done in a minute.” 

Travis sets the table and pours two cups of coffee, starts opening up the newspaper and flipping through the sections.

“What do you want first? Human Interest? Weather?”

“Weather, I guess.”

TK picks out the weather section and hands it to her, keeps the front page for herself. They drink their coffee and eat their breakfast in relative silence, and then swap sections after a bit. Nolan’s more interested in cooking, and Travis in celebrity news, so they always end up fighting over Human Interest a little at the end. Neither of them is the type to read the sports section cover-to-cover, but they trade off reading the headlines aloud. 

“Richard scored a hat trick last night,” Nolan says.

“Oh really? Against who?”

“Chicago, I guess. Oh, and the Yankees and the Browns did some trade. A bunch of guys I never heard of.”

“Huh.” 

They eventually run out of newspaper to read, and are forced to go about the rest of their days. It’s a slow time of year for Nolan, since there’s no more food to preserve, so she’s got a knitting project going. She’s no amazing hand for knitting, and the project looks to be turning out as the world’s lumpiest sweater. With any luck, though, it will physically fit on Travis’s body, and that’s all she’s really asking for, here. She knits, and listens to the radio, and thinks about Christmas. 

Growing up, her mama always said that someday you stop constantly comparing your Christmases to the ones you had as a child. When you have your own family, you stop wishing for everything to conform to your old traditions. She never thought it would be true, even after she met Travis. Their first Christmas together, really together, at the farm, was fraught with worry about money, and as much as they made their own fun, she did find herself wishing for the abounding plenty her parents projected on her childhood Christmases.

This year, though, the farm is in a good place, and she’s not nearly so worried. They traveled to see her parents for Thanksgiving, and will see Travis’s at the New Year. She’s worried about that, a little, about their expectations and the judgement they might pass, but it’s distant. She’s secure in her relationship, utterly convinced of Travis’s love and loyalty. It’s hard and a little unsettling to think about it and admit it that way, but she makes herself, sometimes. Pushes on that spot in her brain until it yields. 

This year they’re doing a few real presents for Christmas, not just stockings. And there’ll be a party on Christmas afternoon with the Giroux’s and all the other usual suspects. The farm has been home for awhile, but it’s only relatively recently that Roxboro has started to feel like home too, like a place where they have a community around them. 

Their life isn’t thrilling adventure, like Nolan had thought about as a child. She didn’t grow up to be a movie actress or a baseball player or anything like that, the kind of things that most children dream about before they really know who they are. But this is better, she thinks. It’s not always easy, but it’s quiet and peaceful and happy and all theirs. The peas are gonna keep coming up every spring, and there’ll be the fair every fall. It doesn’t sound boring or monotonous to her now, it sounds comforting and reliable, their whole lives stretching out ahead of them, a lifetime of time to spend together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Recipes

Nolan’s Beet Soup Recipe

Chop up one onion and three cloves of garlic. Saute them in a few tablespoons of oil until soft. Then add three beets, chopped into 1.5” pieces, two potatoes or sweet potatoes, chopped into 2” pieces, and 1 carrot, chopped into 1” rounds. Cover with stock (vegetable or beef) or stock and water mixture. Boil until all vegetables are soft when poked with a fork. Use a slotted spoon to remove vegetables from stock. Pulse them in a food processor in batches until the entire soup is a thick, relatively smooth consistency. Then, add salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cinnamon, cumin, and bay leaves to taste. Allow to cook down slightly and flavors to blend. Serve with sour cream if desired. 

TK’s Comfort Food Recipe

Cut up several apples (at least 2 apples per person) into 1/4” slices. Saute with butter or margarine and cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves until soft. Add sugar if desired, but taste apples first, as they may already be naturally sweet enough. Make patties of Neese’s original loose breakfast sausage (or similar) or livermush, and pan fry until well done in the middle. Preheat oven to 450F. Mix together 2 cups of flour, 2 tsp baking powder, and 3/4 tsp of salt. Cut in 6 tbs of unsalted, diced, chilled butter until mixture resembles a coarse meal. Then add 3/4 cup of milk, stirring as little as possible to form a shaggy dough. Roll out to 1” thick, cut out circles, bake for 10 minutes. 

Aunt Gertrude’s Cheap Poundcake Recipe

Cream together 3 cups of sugar, 1 cup of butter, and 1/2 cup of margarine. Add 6 eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Beat in 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of baking soda, and 2 tsp of vanilla. Add 3 cups of flour, alternating with 1 cup of milk. Bake at 350F for 1 hour to 75 minutes in a greased and floured tube pan. Serve plain, or with whipped cream and fruit. 

Dad’s Strawberry Shortcake Recipe

Make biscuit recipe, above, but add a few tablespoons of sugar. Sprinkle sugar on top of biscuits before baking. Slice desired quantity of strawberries into small pieces. Whip heavy cream with a few teaspoons of sugar. Top warm biscuit halves with strawberry pieces and cream.

Mama’s Damson Preserve Recipe

Boil damsons in a bit of water until they become soft. Then remove pits and skins. Add sugar to taste. Damsons are naturally quite bitter, so you will need to add plenty of sugar. Boil until mixture reduces and thickens. Can, or store in the fridge. 

Grandpa’s Pickle Recipe

Cut pickling cucumbers into long spears. Boil together 1 part vinegar, 1 part water, and some salt to make the brine. For two jars, use 1 cup, 1 cup, and 1.5 tbs. Scale up as needed. Put one crushed garlic clove in the bottom of each jar, along with a generous amount of dill, coriander seed, and any other spices desired. Can, or store in the fridge. Allow to sit at least a couple of weeks before eating for maximum flavor.

TK’s Pancake Recipe

Whisk together 1 1/2 cups of flour, 1 tbs of sugar, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1 tsp of salt. Separately, whisk together 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk, 3 tablespoons of melted butter or oil, and 2 eggs. Mix together wet and dry ingredients and fry on a greased hot griddle or large frying pan.

Nolan’s White Bread Recipe

Mix together 2 1/4 cups of lukewarm water, 3 tbs of sugar, 1 tbs of salt, and 2 cakes of yeast (or 4 and 1/2 tsp loose yeast). Stir until yeast is dissolved and let proof. Add 2 tbs of shortening, then gradually stir in 7 to 7 1/4 cups of flour. Knead, let rise until doubled. Form into loaves, place in two loaf pans. Let rise again, then bake at 425F for 25 to 30 minutes.

TK’s Mama’s Sticky Buns Recipe

Mix together 2 cups of lukewarm milk, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 2 tsp of salt. Then add 2 cakes of yeast (or 4 and 1/2 tsp loose yeast). Stir until yeast dissolves, let proof. Stir in 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of soft shortening. Then mix in 7 to 7 and 1/2 cups of sifted flour in two additions. Knead, let rise until doubled. Then, roll out into a large rectangle about 1/2 inch thick, spread liberally with butter and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon-sugar. To make buns, roll up from short end to short end, and cut about 1 1/2 inch thick slices of the roll. Melt 1 stick of butter and a solid amount of brown sugar in a 9x13” baking dish. Then pour in a generous amount of pecans. Place sticky buns in the pan and let rise until they fill the pan. Bake at 375F for 25 to 30 mins.

To put it in the fridge overnight, wrap in plastic after first rising and refrigerate. Then, take it out the next morning, allow it to sit for an hour or so, and proceed with the next step.


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